the greatest Mongol ruler of them all, Temüjin, who in 1206 was proclaimed ‘Genghis Khan’ (‘Ruler of the Ocean’), had been the vassal of a Christian Kerait khan and married his overlord’s Christian niece.30 It was through Temüjin’s leadership that, in the space of a few decades, the Mongols became a world power to terrify people from the Mediterranean to the China Sea.
